A five-star hotel room in Johannesburg. AYANDA and ANNA are chatting. They are both wearing imiQhele – traditional white, beaded necklaces.

AYANDA: I know I'm supposed to feel the difference. I'm in Africa now. Part of me says, ‘this is where I belong’, but I have no memories to back this feeling up. Another part of me reminds me that I'm Swedish and my memories back that up.

ANNA: Give it time, darling. It is going to take a while for all of us to realise what it means to be here.

AYANDA: All the books I have read, everything Dad has told me about Africa haven't really prepared me for this. Being in Africa. Being an African. Mom, I feel foreign in the land of my father and forefathers. Where is that passion that Dad always talks about? ‘Wait till you go back and then you will feel it. It's something I cannot give to you, Ayanda, you will find it for yourself, once you set foot on that continent.’

ANNA: Maybe it takes time, Ayanda. I watched your father when we arrived in Port Elizabeth; he was smiling all the way from the airport. Telling us about every street, suburb, building he could still recognise. He had a touch of sadness whenever he saw things he could not remember; a look of disappointment on his face about any new building that was not there when he was here. Muttering under his breath, with a feeling of regret, ‘development’, as if it was a bad thing.

I almost cried when we stood in front of the place where his home was. He stood there like a little child lost, looking around trying to find its parents: ‘This is not the three-roomed house where I was born. Red tiles, double garage door. It's the right address. Number 1 Ntshekisa Road, New Brighton Village, Port Elizabeth. But this is not my home.’